


Settling the Score

by Fortune_Maiden



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, Humor, I say humor but I think it turned into a more introspective-y piece with banter, and much ado about game mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 09:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12106179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fortune_Maiden/pseuds/Fortune_Maiden
Summary: Tonight was the night. One girl would ask Cloud out on a date and tell him how she felt.But which one?





	Settling the Score

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).



> for silveradept
> 
> I loved your prompt the moment I saw it and really wanted to write something for it. I hope you like this story!!!

Tonight was the night.

She’d deliberated about it in her room for a while, wondering and worrying about the timing, but deep down she knew this was the only night for such a thing. Tomorrow they would set out for the Temple of the Ancients, and she could tell it would be a point of no return. Come tomorrow, all sorts of revelations awaited them.

So tonight, she would tell Cloud how she felt.

Aerith stepped out of her hotel room, and skipped up the hall to Cloud’s room. But upon reaching his door, she paused.

* * *

Tonight was the night.

She’d deliberated about it in her room for a while, wondering and worrying about the timing, but deep down she knew this was the only night for such a thing. Tomorrow they would set out for the Temple of the Ancients, and she could feel something sinister awaiting them there. Come tomorrow, things might no longer be the same.

So tonight, she would tell Cloud how she felt.

Tifa stepped out of her hotel room, and walked down the hall to Cloud’s room. But upon reaching his door, she paused.

* * *

Tonight was the night.

She’d deliberated about it in her room for a while, wondering and worrying about the timing, but deep down she knew this was the only night for such a thing. Tomorrow they would set out for the Temple of the Ancients, and she could tell things would get serious. Come tomorrow, they may not have had time for relaxing moments like this.

So tonight, she would tell Cloud how she felt.

Yuffie stepped out of her hotel room, and hopped across the hall to Cloud’s room. But upon reaching his door, she paused.

* * *

“This is not quite how I expected this to go,” Aerith was the first to speak, traces of an amused smile on her otherwise wary face.

“You guys too, huh,” Yuffied said and crossed her arms behind her head.

“I should have known.” Tifa’s bright red face was buried in her hands.

The three of them stood around Cloud’s door watching each other carefully. They didn’t even need to ask. It was clear that all of three of them were there for the same purpose. Taking advantage of their forced stay at the Gold Saucer, they had come to Cloud’s door to ask him out on a date.

In hindsight, they really should have seen this coming.

“What do we do know?” Yuffie asked. “Should we all knock and let Cloud choose?”

“No!” Tifa and Aerith said immediately, one sounding forceful and the other terrified.

“I… don’t think it would be fair to Cloud if we suddenly spring this on him,” Tifa said earnestly. “He has enough on his mind as it is.”

“Y-yeah, what Tifa said,” Aerith nodded along quickly. She also didn’t want to face possibly getting rejected, but Tifa’s answer was better.

“Yeah, you two are probably right,” Yuffie considered it and agreed. “Knowing Cloud, he’ll just suggest the four of us hang out together.”

Aerith, Tifa, and Yuffie all chuckled at the mental image because Cloud was dense about these things so that was indeed the most likely outcome, before all three of them turned serious. No, that was absolutely not an acceptable option.

Tonight was going to be Cloud and one of the three.

“You know, Tifa,” Aerith turned to the martial artist. “I feel like we’ve been putting this off long enough.”

“I agree,” Tifa said. Her mouth was turned upwards into a smile but her eyes were sharp and focused, as though she were facing down a horde of ferocious beasts.

“I think it’s time we settle this.”

* * *

They met in Yuffie’s room. It was the closest one, being just across the hall, so it was the best choice. The three girls sat on the bed with a large bowl of popcorn and a scribbled on notepad between them.

“I think we need some sort of a benchmark,” Aerith said, reading over the sheet carefully. “I don’t think it works if we all start at zero.”

“Yeah! You guys were together for a while before I joined up,” Yuffie complained. “I’m at a total disadvantage.”

“I’m still not really sure this is something that can be quantified,” Tifa said with a heavy sigh.

In theory, it sounded so good. They would look back on their adventure up until now, and tally up Cloud’s affection for them. The girl with the highest score would ask him out, and the other two would support her endeavors going forward. The three of them cared about each other and about Cloud. They didn’t want to fight over his affections.

It was also definitely a better solution than just talking it out. Talking would turn into arguing and they could end up spending the whole night debating and missing their chance for that date. So an agreed-upon point system was easily the most logical option.

But how did one actually quantify that kind of thing? Especially when all three of them were ready to jump on every little interaction as proof that Cloud liked them best.

Even Tifa, calm and shy about these things as she was, found herself getting pretty competitive and snappish.

And the end result was a sheet full of calculations and scribbles that no longer resembled human writing.

“What if we flipped this around?” Tifa suggested after the taking the notepad from Aerith and turning it over a few times to try and make some sense of the logic. “Maybe instead of grading Cloud’s affection for us, we should think about how we feel about him. Throughout our journey, I’m sure there have been moments where we felt as though we were growing closer to him, or if his behavior turned us off in some way.”

Aerith and Yuffie considered it.

“Yeah, I can think of a few moments like that,” Aerith agreed.

“So then should we assign values to _our_ feelings? Like plus one for him asking me for my opinion first or something?” Yuffie asked.

“Yeah, exactly,” Tifa smiled and turned to a blank sheet. She turned the notepad on its side and drew two lines down the page. In the resulting three columns, she wrote each of their names. “I also liked Aerith’s idea about having a benchmark. I don’t think it’s right for us to say we started with zero affection. We all had our first impressions. So...let’s pick something between zero and fifty. For me, I think I was at thirty.”

“Why thirty?” Aerith asked.

“Cloud and I have known each other for years,” Tifa explained. “And he’s one of the few people from Nibelheim left, so I think there’s some attachment there. But at the same time he’s not really the Cloud I remember. He’s…” She trailed off, not really wanting to explain anything further. It didn’t matter right now, and she didn’t want to bring down the mood by burdening Aerith and Yuffie with those feelings. They liked Cloud. It wouldn’t be fair of her to paint this ominous confusing image of him.

Aerith seemed to catch on to her unease so she cut in. “For me, it’s a fifty.”

“The top score right away?” Yuffie frowned. “That’s not fair! You’ll win for sure that way.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Aerith grinned. “But I’m not choosing fifty just because I want to win, even though that is the goal. I’m choosing fifty because it’s true. The Cloud I met back in Midgar was basically my old boyfriend come back to life.”

“Zack?” Tifa asked.

Aerith nodded. “Looking back, it’s eerie how similar they were, but I didn’t really care then. I really felt like he’d come back.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Yuffie conceded and took the notepad to put down 30 for Tifa and 50 for Aerith. She wondered what score to put for herself. She didn’t have Tifa and Cloud’s history, and while she had met Zack a long time ago, she never really thought of him when she thought of Cloud. Cloud for her was just a cool older guy that she really, really liked. And her first impression of him was…that of a cool older guy. With a lot of materia for her to steal.

But still a cool older guy.

“I’ll go with ten,” she said and put it down for herself. “No deep reason. But I can’t compete with you two after hearing that.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Yuffie,” Tifa smiled kindly at her. “Your feelings for Cloud are no less real than ours.”

“Yes,” Aerith agreed. If anything, Yuffie’s feelings may have been the most straightforward, unhindered by unease and doubt.

“Thanks guys,” Yuffie felt her face heat up. “Shall we get started then?”

“Not just yet,” Aerith said and added another column to the notepad. She didn’t put down a name, but in the same row as their first impressions, she put down a zero.

“What’s that?” Tifa asked.

“I think we need one more benchmark,” Aerith said. “As we go along, if we realize that someone else may have grown closer to Cloud than we did, we should respect that too.”

“I guess?” Yuffie frowned.

“Don’t worry, I don’t think that’ll be the case,” Aerith assured her with a chuckle. “We have three beautiful sexy ladies here. How could it not be one of us?”

Aerith’s words sounded sensible enough.

“Should we choose from one of the men in our group then?” Tifa asked.

“Cid, Vincent and Cait Sith are definitely out,” Yuffie said quickly. “The old-timers only just joined us, and I’m still not sure what Cait Sith is supposed to be.”

“He is an odd one,” Aerith agreed quietly.

“That’s fine. Red and Barret have been with us since Midgar, so one of them would make more sense,” Tifa said.

They considered it a moment.

“Barret,” they declared unanimously and added his name to the sheet. It fit too. According to Tifa, Barret and Cloud couldn’t stand each other when they’d first met.  But there was a noticeable change in their relationship now.

“Okay, so where do we begin?” Aerith asked.

“I think I should start,” Tifa said. “I think this whole thing began when Cloud first joined up with AVALANCHE…”

* * *

Cloud was different than she’d remembered. He seemed more confident and sharp-tongued than the shy awkward boy from her town. But maybe that was just the years the distance talking. She hadn’t really been that close to Cloud back then, so she couldn’t really say she knew what he was like and he’d put on quite a bit of height and muscle since then too. He achieved his dream of becoming a SOLDIER 1st Class, though the Tifa of the past would have been much happier for him. This Tifa was just happy he was an _ex_ -SOLDIER, and willing to help in their fight against Shinra.

She wished he wasn’t so flirty though. It was one thing to try and get along with Jessie at least, but he didn’t have to be so receptive to her affections.

* * *

“Put down minus three for that one,” Tifa suddenly said. “That flirting really annoyed me.”

“Jealous?” Aerith grinned.

“It’s just not Cloud, that’s all.”

* * *

Tifa remembered very well how she felt the night after Cloud came home from his first mission. She could tell right away it was a success from all of the bright smiles and drinks being ordered. Even Cloud, who always struck her as the type to avoid alcohol asked for a drink, which he chugged down in three gulps and then complemented her bartending skills.

It also warmed her heart to see him getting along with Barret’s daughter Marlene, whom he gave a flower to.

* * *

“Oh! That must have been the flower he’d bought from me!” Aerith exclaimed happily.

“Does he earn points for that?” Yuffie asked.

Aerith considered it but then shook her head. “Nah, I didn’t know who he was back then. I was happy he bought the flower but it didn’t leave that much of an impression. So he gave it to Marlene, did he?” Aerith took the notepad and put down +5 for Barret. “Getting along with Marlene is definitely the way to Barret’s heart.”

“That and cursing out Shinra,” Tifa agreed, but she stared at the added points somewhat wistfully.

“I bet you wish Cloud gave you that flower,” Aerith teased.

“What? Of course not!”

“Aww, you can’t fool me. You were totally jealous.”

“Aerith, I was not jealous of a four-year-old,” Tifa said exasperated. “And don’t you dare deduct points from me.”

“I wasn’t. I’m adding them,” Aerith said. “Plus five for complementing your drink-making skills. Can you make me something sometime?”

“Sure, next chance I get,” Tifa promised, though she wasn’t entirely sure she could or even wanted to picture Aerith drinking.

* * *

That night was also important to Tifa because of their promise. She had a chance to prod Cloud about their past a little and remind him of that one night under the stars before Cloud had left for Midgar. Since their reunion, Cloud’s recollection of events seemed spotty and outright wrong at times, but this one memory remained intact. He was still the Cloud she remembered.

That was worth another +5 for sure.

The next morning they’d set out for another mission—Tifa joined up as well. Cloud was in a good mood that morning, despite complaining about Barret’s snoring (Tifa had been admittedly surprised that he’d slept near Barret that night when they tried to stay on opposite ends of the room otherwise, but she didn’t question it. It would have been nicer if he’d slept next to her, but that probably wouldn’t have been appropriate). He’d showed off his SOLDIER knowledge by teaching Barret about materia, and then put his money where his mouth was in getting the three of them out of the train when their fake IDs triggered a security lockdown.

Tifa had been impressed. Barret even more so. Later on, after they’d succeeded in bombing the reactor but lost Cloud, Barret mentioned to her how cool the ex-SOLDIER had really been. And how impressed he’d been with Cloud staying strong and unfettered while dangling over that height.

* * *

“Barret certainly built up quite a few points back then,” Tifa said adding another 12 to his score. They debated it and decided he’d earned 5 for the night spent together and the materia tutorial, 5 for being impressed with Cloud’s espionage skills, and another 2 for warming up to his character and determination. Tifa gave herself a 5 for the for the train escape as well. There had been a few times when she really thought they were about to be caught, but Cloud pulled through.

He really was a SOLDIER 1st Class.

“I wonder…” Aerith muttered to herself.

“Sounds like you guys had quite the adventure back in Midgar,” Yuffie said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Tifa sighed. Thinking about Midgar hurt most days, but looking back, it really was pretty wild.

She wasn’t sure whether to dread or anticipate Yuffie learning about Wall Market.

“So you guys lost Cloud while escaping from the reactor,” the young ninja said, grabbing a handful of popcorn. “So how’d you meet up later?”

“I think that’s where I came in,” Aerith said brightly. “That must have been when Cloud dropped into the church.”

* * *

The same.

Everything was the same.

The build, the uniform, the sword…even the position he’d fallen in.

The hair was spikier, but everything else felt _exactly the same_ and Aerith felt her spirits lifting further when he’d woken up and they started talking. He seemed a little moodier and ruder, but even some of his reactions to her inquiries and comments were exactly the same.

She wanted to know more about him. She wanted him keep him close. She didn’t want to lose him.

* * *

“We get it,” Yuffie snapped and threw a piece of popcorn at Aerith. “It was all perfect and lovely and you’re going to add another hundred points right now.”

“Actually, I need to subtract points,” Aerith laughed and wrote a large angry -10.

“That many?” Tifa blinked.

“Yeah. For all that you were gushing about his SOLDIER training and reliability, all I saw was a hopelessly clumsy guy scrambling to save the damsel in distress, and failing miserably.” Aerith shook her head. “It was kind of cute, but I _was_ technically in a bit of danger at the time.”

“What happened?” Yuffie asked.

“Well…”

* * *

“Sorry!” Cloud shouted from the ceiling as Aerith narrowly avoided another barrel—the third one! “I’ll get it right next time!”

“No, please, take your time,” Aerith’s smile was twitching. “I’m plenty tough.”

Aerith suspected the Turks were taking pity on her at this point, and really holding back with their attacks, even more than their orders to capture her alive entailed. Under normal circumstances, Aerith would never have been able to fend them off with just her staff.

* * *

“Oh.” Was all Tifa said.

“Yeah,” Aerith sighed. “But he _did_ finally push the right barrel in the end, and it ended up landing on Reno, so I guess he does deserve one point back.”

* * *

After that harrowing escape, Aerith was thrilled to be spending more time with Cloud. It was a little harder to get him to open up than it had been Zack, but once he did, he was fun to tease. She was happy to learn that despite his concern towards Tifa, she wasn’t his girlfriend, but she really did wish Cloud hadn’t taken her home before sneaking off to Sector 7. Why even bother when she just ended up following him anyway? Cloud didn’t know the slums like she did! And he certainly never would have been able to rescue Tifa afterwards without her ingenious thinking...

* * *

“Wall Market?” Tifa asked.

“Wall Market.” Aerith answered.

“What happened at Wall Market?” Yuffie asked edging closer to Aerith, fascinated.

“Ah, I’m not sure this is very appropriate for a young audience,” Aerith said.

“No, no it’s very appropriate,” Tifa assured her. It definitely wasn't, but Tifa had been really wanting to hear this story for herself.

“Well, if you insist.”

Aerith wasn’t the best storyteller—too prone to giggling—but when the material was as riveting and surreal as Cloud’s Crossdressing Adventure, she didn’t need to be. Tifa and Yuffie just stared with wide eyes and open mouths as Aerith told in great detail how she and Cloud had put their best efforts forward to make him the prettiest girl in all of Midgar. They had made sure to gather all of the best accessories and articles of clothing for the task, no matter what Cloud had to subject himself to for them.

“And it all paid off, because Cloud was chosen in the end,” Aerith told Yuffie. “Though admittedly I’m kinda jealous.”

“You _wanted_ to be chosen?” Tifa sputtered.

“Ew! No way! But if you’d been chosen, Cloud would have had to save me from Don Corneo’s flunkies. That would have been nice.”

“I see,” Tifa said critically. “Well, if you had been chosen, I guess it would have been nice to see Cloud worrying and rushing to save you.”

“Aww, I thought you were a fan of rescue romances.”

“Not when I can rescue myself. And not when someone else is in greater danger.”

Aerith quieted down. Tifa was younger than her, but she really was so much more mature at times.

“So, Miss Cloud was chosen,” Yuffie said. “Did…did he and the Don…you know?”

“No!”

“Definitely not!”

Aerith and Tifa shuddered.

“He stalled things while we worked on freeing ourselves,” Tifa explained.

“Although, come to think of it, didn’t he pretend to be dating Barret while keeping Don Corneo off him?” Aerith asked.

“Yeah. Barret would have loved that if he knew.” Someone probably should have told him about it, but Cloud, Aerith and Tifa all agreed never to speak of it again once they’d had some breathing room. They probably needed to make Yuffie promise never to repeat this conversation too.

“Okay, so that’s another plus five for Barret.” Yuffie added the points.

“Wait what?”

“Why?”

“I think it counts for something,” Yuffie said simply. “So then, you three escaped?”

“Yeah. At that point…”

* * *

At that point, they’d traveled together for a time. Cloud had checked on Aerith first after their escape, the flower girl took great delight in pointing out, and later he’d asked her to take care of Marlene. Tifa recounted how worried he’d been about Aerith when talking to Barret’s daughter later, which had made Tifa a little jealous.

He’d worried about Aerith a lot then. Which was fair since she’d been captured, and Tifa supposed she should have been happy that she was able to stay by Cloud’s side while Barret had been asked to take care of the former.

* * *

“Barret again,” Aerith muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Aerith said firmly. “Besides, it doesn’t matter. Cloud chose the two of us to accompany him when we’d agreed to split up so another plus 2 there for both of us. And not for Barret.”

“Aerith, are you okay?” Tifa raised a suspicious brow.

“Perfectly fine.”

Yuffie shrugged and added in the points.

* * *

They’d been captured.

Probably something they should have expected after getting all the way to the President’s Office. The jail cell wasn’t too bad though. Tifa ended up in the same cell as Cloud, who’d assured her he’d be able to break them out. The cells were all right next to each other, and pretty flimsy so they could still hear each other as well. Barret and Red had had an interesting conversation as Tifa recalled—

* * *

“Aww so he went to their cell first?” Aerith asked.

“Yeah. Barret was louder so I think it just made more sense to check in with him and Red first,” Tifa said, then put on the same flirty smile, she’d seen on Aerith way too many times. “Jealous?”

“No way!” Aerith pouted. “Besides, Cloud picked me for his party once we’d escaped Midgar! That made me happy.”

“Oh yeah,” Tifa frowned. “And his other choice was Barret.”

“Barret again…” Aerith sighed heavily. “Okay, is it me or Barret’s name coming up a little too often?”

“Oh good. I thought I was the only one,” Yuffie agreed with a scowl.

“Barret’s our benchmark. There’s nothing strange about us paying attention to his interactions with Cloud,” Tifa said, though she couldn’t deny her own irritation at this either.

“Yeah, but it’s like Cloud is going out of his way to impress Barret!” Yuffie groaned. “I mean, befriending his daughter,  showing off his macho-ness, pretending to date him to avoid the old sleazebag, trusting him to keep Aerith safe, inviting him into his party. I feel like here we are assessing _our_ feelings for Cloud while he’s just building up points with someone else!”

“Do you think Cloud may prefer men?” Aerith asked Tifa.

“Why are you looking at me?” Tifa replied. “And, I don’t know? I feel like he had a crush on me growing up.” She wasn’t entirely sure about that, but he’d always seemed interested in hanging out with her and her alone when they were kids.

“But you know, once puberty hits, and he’s had more experiences…and you know, I never brought it up before, but remember that time with Don Corneo, when we’d barged into the bedroom? Don’t you think it looked like he and the Don were about to…you know?”

“…Maybe?” Tifa considered it found herself agreeing. No, that couldn’t be right. Don Corneo must have forced himself onto Cloud. Even if Cloud was more interested in men, Don Corneo did not count, so that was the only thing that made sense.

“And come to think of it, at the Honeybee Inn…” Aerith began but trailed off ominously.

“What happened at the Honeybee Inn?” Tifa asked. When there was no response, she felt a growing dread. “Aerith, what happened at the Honeybee Inn?”

“Um, anyway, let’s move on,” Aerith quickly changed the subject. “Let’s see after Midgar, we arrived in Kalm, right? Beautiful place. Anything of note happen?”

“Aerith you can’t just change the subject—oh forget it.” Tifa felt a headache coming on. “Only thing I can think of is Cloud telling us about Nibelheim.” Tifa didn’t want to think about that though.

“Ah, right, as he remembers it,” Aerith nodded. She didn’t want to think about that either. “Barret had been pretty fired up afterwards, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah. He’d made a big impassioned speech, and then gloated to me later how Cloud apparently agreed with him,” Tifa said.

“More points for Barret. Yippee.” Yuffie added another tally. How much longer until they reached the point where she joined? As fascinating as Aerith and Tifa’s recollections were, she wanted to reminisce about her moments with Cloud too!

“I think that’s it for Kalm, right?” Tifa asked.

“Yeah, Cloud seemed pretty out of it after that story. He couldn’t even decide if he thought Mako energy was convenient or if he preferred the old life.”

“The old life, definitely,” Aerith and Tifa said together. Yuffie decided against bringing up her own feelings on the topic.

Instead, she said, “So how much longer ‘till I show up? At this rate I’ll never catch up to you two.”

“It’s not really about catching up,” Tifa said. “But I can’t really think of anything else right now that stood out to me.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Aerith said. “How about you pick things up from here then?”

“Finally!” Yuffie grinned and grabbed another handful of popcorn.

* * *

They were suckers. A group of three—a man, a woman, and some kind of dog-thing—just wandering around with a bunch of materia in tow. One of them dressed like a SOLDIER, but SOLDIER hadn’t been anything special since that whole incident with Sephiroth years ago. Besides, Yuffie knew a SOLDIER once. That guy was a chump. This one had a similar dumb looking face.

Sure, they’d bested her in combat when she attacked them. But Yuffie never planned on winning. She knew people would think twice about attacking a sweet-looking little girl like herself, and once they’d defeated her, as she’d expected, they’d stopped to ask questions.

She’d planted some distractions around them. If they fell for them, she’d grab what she could and run, but to her surprise, the leader of the group—Cloud—wasn’t fooled that easily. He wouldn’t rise to her bait of fighting again and left no openings for her to grab his wallet.

She didn’t know how, but somehow she felt as though she were swindled into joining Cloud’s group. But that was fine. Now she could keep an eye on that growing pile of materia.

* * *

“And that was how Cloud went from being a pretty face to someone really cool,” Yuffie said cheerfully and added a plus 10 for herself.

“You…you were already planning to trick us back then weren’t you,” Tifa said sharply at the same moment that Aerith exclaimed, “Plus ten? That much?”

It let Yuffie neatly avoid Tifa’s accusation. “Ten points sounds right,” she told Aerith. “Cloud went up in my estimates that much! Oh and he gets another ten for forgiving me for stealing all your materia and everything else that happened in Wutai. It meant a lot to me.”

“But—

“Let it go, Aerith,” Tifa said. “It’s only fair.” At the rate they’d been going, Yuffie would be lucky if her final score topped _Barret’s_.

“Cloud went up in my estimates again over at Fort Condor,” Yuffie said and added another 4 points to her column. At least it wasn’t another 10. “Pretty sure we were in a hurry somewhere, but Cloud still took the time to listen to that old guy and even agreed to help. That was pretty cool.”

“Oh yeah, I’d almost forgotten about that,” Aerith said and clapped her hands together. “I was really happy Cloud agreed to help then.”

“Me too,” Tifa said with a small smile, but it faded immediately. “But you know who was even happier?”

“ _Barret_.” The three girls grumbled and begrudgingly added yet another number to his column, the highest one for this event.

After an awkward silence, Yuffie spoke up again. “But you know, at least nothing happened between them on that awful cargo ship. At least not that I know of.”

“If we don’t know about it, it didn’t happen,” Aerith insisted. “But the ship was nice. Cloud promised to take me on the airship we saw in Junon one day.” She added 2 points to her score.

“Hated that ship,” Yuffie shuddered. “Cloud gave me some tranqs to help me fight off the seasickness though.” She gave herself another 4 points.

“Mm,” Tifa didn’t say anything but she took the pencil and subtracted 2 points from own score. This only made Aerith and Yuffie curious, but Tifa didn’t really want to explain that distance she felt from Cloud then. She felt it from him occasionally, and each time it made her sad and resentful.

“Man, looking back at all of this now, I’m really starting to realize how nice Cloud is despite acting like a jerk all the time,” Yuffie said, eager to move things along. At the end of this discussion, there was still that date one of them would go on. “Remember the first time we came here? Cloud asked me to accompany him while we looked around the joint.”

“You were practically bouncing off the walls with excitement,” Tifa said with a fond smile. “It’d have been pretty awful of him to go with anyone else.”

“I would have liked to go with him though,” Aerith  mused. “If he hadn’t asked any of us, I’d have followed him in.”

“You would,” Tifa sighed. Not that she hadn’t wanted to go with him herself. But if Cloud had wanted to be alone it wouldn’t have been right of her to force her company on him. Aerith was a little too forward at times. Back then, she’d been pretty pushy in trying to cheer Barret up too. It was probably for the best that Cloud had asked Tifa to come along with him and Barret when they’d went to confront Dyne.

Barret again...

“After that whole thing with Dyne, Barret and Cloud probably grew closer again,” Tifa found herself saying out loud.

“Understandable, I suppose,” Aerith said calmly.

“Oh yeah, when we were in Cosmo Canyon, I overheard them talking about AVALANCHE,” Yuffie added. “Do we add more points for that?”

“We may as well,” Tifa said and put down 6 points.

Silence descended upon the room. The three girls had gone over their journey and their own little moments with Cloud. It was probably time to take the final score. They weren’t forgetting anything right?

“I guess, maybe, I would like to add one final point for Gongaga?” Aerith said softly. “After…after we’d met Zack’s parents, it meant a lot that Cloud tried to comfort me a little.”

“Same,” Tifa said. “I don’t really know how to feel about that guy, but…yeah.”

“Okay, I’ve added it.” Yuffie said and set the notepad down in the center for all of them to see.

It was time to take score. They had to. Yuffie was probably out of the running for good—Tifa and Aerith’s first impression score did ultimately give them a serious edge, but it was really disconcerting to see all of those numbers under Barret’s name. If Tifa really had to suppose, it made sense that his affection for Cloud would go up the most since he literally started off hating the guy and complaining about him every chance he got.

But had his feelings really grown that much? And, more importantly, had their scoring system ranked Barret above any of them?

“I’m counting it now,” Yuffie announced. A businesswoman at heart, Yuffie worked out the math quickly. She also checked it multiple times so there was no mistake in the final score.

Convinced that everything was tallied properly, she scowled and slammed the notepad onto the bed.

“Oh come on!” she scowled.

“What?” Aerith and Tifa said alarmed. Did Barret really…?

“I’m dead last with 41 points!” Yuffie whined. “I lost to _Barret_.”

As Aerith comforted her, Tifa picked up the notepad. She winced.

“Wow 47 points. I only barely beat him out at 50.”

“Cloud and Barret…I think I’m actually starting to see it,” Aerith remarked. On the one hand, Barret may have been the best option for all of them. They couldn’t fight over Cloud that way (not that they were really fighting to begin with. Mercilessly teasing and trying to one-up each other, maybe, but never fighting), but at the same time, they were not giving up Cloud that easily! If Barret thought he could just whisk Cloud out from under their noses, he had another think coming!

“What’s my score?” she asked.

“You…” Tifa paused for dramatic effect before turning over the notepad, “are our big winner at 60 points.”

“Guess that initial score gave you the biggest boost,” Yuffie said. “Though it’s a little depressing to think we’d have all lost if we started at 0.”

“Then let’s not think about it!” Aerith said. “But is that really okay?” She was happy to win, of course, but she wasn’t happy to see Tifa and Yuffie lose. Was their system really fair enough? She hadn’t given herself too much of a lead, had she?

“Of course it’s okay,” Tifa assured her. “We all agreed to this.”

“’Course, I’m happy to take your place, if you’re having second thoughts,” Yuffie added.

“Nice try,” Aerith said with a smile and stood up, straightening out her dress. “I guess I’ll be going then?”

“Go,” Tifa said. “The night’s not getting younger and you have something important to tell Cloud, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” Aerith felt her resolve strengthening. She needed Cloud to hear this.

“Good luck!” Yuffie gave her a thumbs up.

With a smile and a nod, Aerith quietly exited the room.

* * *

Tonight was the night.

She had deliberated about it in her room for a while, wondering and worrying about the timing, but deep down she knew this was the only night for such a thing. Tomorrow they would set out for the Temple of the Ancients, and she could tell it would be a point of no return. Come tomorrow, all sorts of revelations awaited them.

So tonight, with Tifa and Yuffie’s blessings, she would tell Cloud how she felt.

Aerith stepped out of Yuffie’s hotel room, and walked across the hall to Cloud’s room.

Upon reaching his door, she knocked.

“Door’s open,” Cloud called from inside.

“Hee hee,” she giggled. Cloud stood by his bed, watching her closely.

“What’s wrong?”

No turning back now.

“You want to go on a date?” Aerith asked brightly.

“What?”

“A DA-TE! Or haven't you ever gone on one?” Aerith teased, but then something else occurred to her. “Or, don’t tell me, you would prefer a date with Barret?”

“… _What?_ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> I meant to write a pure humor piece but I think it ended up focusing more of the friendship between the three girls and a more introspective-y look at their relationships with Cloud. And jealousy of Barret, because he's their ultimate rival! (poor guy will never know why the three ladies are glaring at him the next morning) I hope there's still some humor to be found though!  
> I followed the affection guide for this (so the score tallying is actually based on the game), and ultimately picked choices that I felt were in character for Cloud, while also trying to raise Barret's score as much as possible and get Tifa to at least 50. For reasons :P
> 
> Anyway thank you for reading and I really hoped you liked the story! :)


End file.
